Donald Trump had a hard time standing still during Sunday night’s town hall-style presidential debate in St. Louis. Embracing the free-range format, the GOP nominee could at times be spotted wandering onstage and looming behind Hillary Clinton as she spoke. CNN called it “awkward.” The Huffington Post, which made a video mashup out of it, deemed it “creepy.”
Clinton herself noted that Trump was, well, “very present” during the debate.
In Trump’s defense, the broadcast of the debate may have made him appear closer to Clinton than he actually was at times. And yet there he hovered in the background of so many shots, pacing back and forth, sometimes frowning or grimacing in reaction to Clinton. To viewers at home, there were moments when he seemed within arm’s length of his much shorter opponent. Many female viewers, in particular, found his body language in relation to Clinton off-putting, to put it mildly.
Trump should have taken a debate cue from Clinton: When your opponent is speaking, have a seat. Don’t be afraid to relinquish the limelight. Enjoy some water. Maybe even take a few notes. Whatever you do, don’t get near the other speaker’s personal space.
To a lot of folks on Twitter, Trump’s looming recalled another Hillary Clinton debate moment: Rick Lazio’s disastrous performance in a September 2000 debate in the New York Senate race. As Clinton was speaking late in the debate, Lazio crossed the stage to her lectern, put a campaign finance pledge in front of her and, jabbing his finger at the paper, demanded that she sign it. (She didn’t, though she did awkwardly shake his hand.) Lazio’s invasion of Clinton’s personal space made him look like a grade-A bully. Clinton won the election handily.
But the annals of presidential debates provide us with an even more apt comparison to Trump’s looming than the Lazio moment. In 2000, another tall presidential hopeful decided to get a little too close to his opponent.
The debate of Oct. 17, 2000, moderated by Jim Lehrer, had a stage format similar to Sunday’s town hall, allowing George W. Bush and Al Gore to wander the floor as they spoke. During a back-and-forth on health care, Bush argued that he’d make for a more effective leader in Washington than Gore.
“Well, the difference is that I can get it done,” Bush said. “That’s what the question in this campaign is about. It’s not only ‘what’s your philosophy’ and ‘what’s your position on issues,’ but ‘can you get things done?’”
That got Gore out of his seat. The then-vice president strode across the stage toward Bush as he spoke, close enough to knock out the Texas governor if he wanted. It was too awkward for Bush not to acknowledge. As Gore loomed over him, Bush stopped in the middle of his answer, turned to Gore, and simply nodded in a how-ya-doin’ fashion.
The crowd laughed. Gore looked like a bully. And Bush came off like a pretty funny guy.
Enjoy:
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.